


Goodbye, Ms. Flower Thief!

by beanplague



Category: Vocaloid
Genre: F/F, Happy Ending, Some Humor, vocaloids b like........... lebiab
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 06:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18114956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanplague/pseuds/beanplague
Summary: Miku starts seeing this girl, and it doesn't last—for the most part.[my piece for the love song zine!! find it @vocaloidvalentinezine on tumblr.]





	Goodbye, Ms. Flower Thief!

Whenever Miku sees her, she has flowers in her hair.

“I take them from my neighbor’s garden,” she says, on a day where the flowers in her hair are yellow and orange. A day where she observes and analyzes Miku, sizing her up. “They don’t mind.”

Miku takes to calling her the Flower Thief from then on.

* * *

She works at the juice bar by the beach. Miku sits on a stool in front of the counter and they talk. The Flower Thief lives around here, and during the summer she likes to meet new people.

“Especially attractive people, might I add,” she says, and Miku blinks. “You. You’re the especially attractive people.”

“I am?”

“You are.”

“Oh,” says Miku, “I don’t really—uhm, thank you? I guess?”

The Flower Thief laughs, and Miku shrinks a bit, flustered. “You don’t get a lot of compliments?”

Miku does. She gets complimented all the time, and often it’s kind of unwarranted, but nobody ever really compliments here like _this._ Like they’re trying to test something. She tells the Flower Thief, “I guess not.”

The Flower Thief leans on the counter, “I’m surprised. You’re very easy to compliment. Gimme, like, five minutes. I can come up with a few.”

“Oh, you really don’t—” Miku stops herself, eyebrows knitting together as realization dawns upon her, “Are you flirting with me?”

“Oh, I’ve been caught red handed! Take me away, officer. I cannot redeem myself from such a crime against romance.”

“You’re very dramatic.”

“Ouch,” the Flower Thief puts a hand on her heart, “I am attacked, and deeply wounded. Only the love of a beautiful woman can—”

“Okay, I get the point,” says Miku, _“Really_ laying it on thick, there.”

“It’s a new tactic! Is it working? I gotta hope it’s working, right? Oh—how long are you staying on the beach?”

“It’s a vacation with my friends. We go home in a few weeks.”

“A few weeks, huh?” the Flower Thief pushes herself up from the counter, and she paces back and forth theatrically. Miku wonders what kind of character she’s going for, because _suave_ certainly isn’t a word she would use to describe it. It’s very humorous, never taking itself to seriously. The Flower Thief suddenly slams her hands back on the counter. “A date is in order!” she says.

“A date?”

“A date,” nods the Flower Thief, “Or, you know, just hanging out. I can meet your friends after my shift.”

Miku thinks for a moment, and she makes an admission, “I’ve never…” she stops, hoping the Flower Thief will fill in the blank, and fill it in she does.

“A pure maiden? In this day and age?” she gasps, and Miku is not sure how one person can be so loud and lack so much shame.

“I’ve never been on a date!” she interjects, feeling the color rising to her face. God, how can one person be so utterly _embarrassing?_ Maybe she should reconsider this _date_ thing.

There’s a beat of silence. “Oh,” says the Flower Thief. She chuckles, “Seems I was a few steps ahead of you, then.”

“You think?” says Miku, rolling her eyes.

The Flower Thief only smiles, and she shrugs. “There’s a first time for everything, right? And if it doesn’t go well, I’ll hide behind the counter every time you come in here. That way, you never have to deal with the post-date awkwardness.”

There’s more talking, and the Flower Thief carries herself with this casual front. Miku should decline the offer—should tell her that though there’s a first for everything, some firsts should be special. That Miku has no interest in blazing past her own experiences with a stranger.

But Miku is interested, and so she says yes, and she waits for the Flower Thief’s shift to be over.

* * *

The sun is setting below the horizon, and the moon is settling into the darkening sky. Her friends are somewhere around here, sitting together and enjoying the vacation while Miku sits by the cooler with the Flower Thief, eating a cherry-flavored popsicle. Thinking about this and that, but mostly this. Being here, with the Flower Thief, on the beach.

“You don’t _know_ that,” Miku says. The Flower Thief hums curiously in response.

“Know what?”

“If your neighbors mind or not,” says Miku, “They could hate it when you take those flowers. I don’t imagine you stay behind to hear their thoughts about it.”

The Flower Thief smiles, and Miku sees the briefest flash of her teeth when she does. “No, I don’t.”

It’s quiet for a while. The Flower Thief leans her head on Miku’s shoulder, cautiously taking one of her hands. “You’ve never been with anyone before?” she says.

“You’re changing the subject,” replies Miku, her face coloring. A few seconds pass, and she exhales, “No, never.”

“And you’re not curious at all?” The Flower Thief’s voice is low, “You never just wanna get it over with?”

“That’s irrelevant,” says Miku, but she meets the Flower Thief’s eyes and there’s a small voice in her brain that says _checkmate,_  the Flower Thief’s won this round. Miku might not have any experience with this kind of thing, but she does think about it. She does wonder. And the Flower Thief is offering an answer to all of Miku’s questions about intimacy.

(An answer to all of Miku’s desire for it.)

They kiss, and Miku doesn’t expect it to be _so good_ , but it is. It might be a little hasty for her to say that—it’s not like she has much experience with kissing aside from this, but whatever. It’s doesn’t take an expert to say that it’s good.

And the Flower Thief _is_ an expert, or, Miku assumes she is. That assumption may be a product of her own naivete, but the Flower Thief has this certain quality about her. This confidence that just isn’t found in other people. It’s easy to fall into this casual motion with which she walks through life.

At least at first.

* * *

It’s not long until they move forward, and Miku is all in.

It’s sweet, it’s enthusiastic, it’s _fun._ And Miku doesn’t think about it much at all in the moment, but upon reflection she wonders—why _the Flower Thief?_

It bothers her a bit, that question, because there _are_ good things about the Flower Thief. She’s charismatic. She’s funny, sometimes. Other times she’s a little embarrassing—but embarrassment really isn’t so bad around her. Around her, embarrassment is kind of playful; none of it really means anything. Miku deliberates on whether or not she finds that quality troubling or appealing, and suddenly she’s back at square one.

And all the thinking is really for nothing, because it invariably leads to Miku trying to justify her own interest in the Flower Thief to herself, because she really does think the Flower Thief is special.

There’s certainly something special in how comfortable she is with herself. How she laughs and jokes and smiles. How she could light up a room with her stupid, terrible jokes. It’s easy being in _something_ with her, because the Flower Thief dances through life with a firm grip on what she desires, and though Miku might lag behind her in experience (with just about everything), there is something about the Flower Thief that tells her not to worry. Tells her not to think of it.

Of course, then time passes, and days go on, and Miku does think of it.

* * *

Miku lays in bed with the Flower Thief, who peppers her face with kisses. Kisses on her lips and cheeks and nose and forehead. It’s clumsy and silly and Miku sort of loses herself in the moment, and she says something she isn’t supposed to; breaks some unspoken rule.

She says, “I think I love you,” and the Flower Thief freezes.

She pulls away, “You don’t—uh—why?”

_“Why?”_

“I just,” the Flower Thief groans, and she shakes her head, “I just, I dunno, why would you say that when you know that I—I’m not exactly looking for that kind of thing, you know?”

And Miku blinks up at this girl, with the stolen flowers in her hair and the conflicted look on her face, and she realizes, with some bittersweetness, that the Flower Thief is really, truly just a girl. A girl with insecurities and faults and a truly humiliating fear of commitment—and Miku can only feel that she’s wasted her time, here.

* * *

They do see each other a few more times before Miku leaves, but nothing is as good as the first few times. There is no blissful ignorance regarding the Flower Thief’s true nature, and Miku returns home with no goodbye.

The year moves on, though, and with it Miku’s life does the same. She sees other people (though none of them really last) and she builds her own ideals. She understands more, and she looks back on that summer with the Flower Thief throughout the process. The bitterness of that memory, which used to be fresh and vitriolic, now seems like a relic of the past.

The next summer comes around, and Miku once again visits the beach. She feels the sun on her skin, and the carefree nature of her vacation, but some part of her knows what she’s _really_ looking for.

And the Flower Thief is still at that juice bar, and she still has that same smile when she sees Miku.

* * *

She doesn’t have any flowers in her hair, today.

“Okay, so, don’t laugh,” says the Flower Thief, once her shift ends. “I have something for you.”

Miku barely hides a smile, “Oh?” and then, of course, she utterly fails to hide it at all, “I have to say, keeping a gift for me seems like a _relationship_ thing to do, and I specifically remember that you said we weren’t in a relationship—”

“Don’t remind me,” says the Flower Thief, doing some dramatic physical cringe, “Me from a year ago was an idiot. She had no idea how to treat a lady, and I apologize for her rudeness.”

She lowers herself, reaching for something on a shelf underneath the counter, before standing and presenting it to Miku. “Ta-da,” she says, cautious.

It’s a soil pot, with a small, pink flower growing from it. The Flower Thief scratches the back of her neck, awkwardly explaining, “I wanted it to be bigger when I gave it to you. You know, ‘grand gesture of romance’ and all that.”

“I’m sorry, you’re giving _me_ a grand gesture of romance?” Miku says, and she chuckles a bit, “I’m convinced you must have stolen this.”

“Oh, but I didn’t!” says the Flower Thief, like she was waiting for Miku to say such a thing, “I grew it myself, as, like, a metaphor? An honest expression of my feelings or whatever—”

“You really _have_ changed,” says Miku, and the Flower Thief looks at her with softened eyes.

“I have, yeah,” she says, “I _know_ that I sort of spoiled everything between us when we were, well, you know, but I want to,” she pauses, and she inhales, “I want to try again. With you, and us.”

Miku looks down at the flower pot, and back up at the Flower Thief. “You’re _embarrassing,”_ she says to the Flower Thief.

“God, I know. It’s so stupid, I just—”

“Of course we can try again,” says Miku, “How could I ever say no to all of this? Though I must say, if ‘honest expressions of your feelings’ include you being this insecure, I think I preferred the girl who stole from her neighbors.”

And at that, the Flower Thief laughs, relieved. “Yeah, I, uhm. They actually called me out on that. I can tell you the whole story next time.”

Miku looks forward to hearing the whole story.


End file.
